The papers of Sir O. W. (Owen Willans) Richardson, the Nobel Prize-winning British
physicist who pioneered the field of thermionics, contain research materials and drafts
of his writings, correspondence, as well as letters and writings from numerous distinguished
fellow scientists.

Call Number:

MS-3522

Language:

Primarily English; some works and correspondence written in French, German, or Italian.

Note:

The Ransom Center gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Center for
History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, which provided funds to
support the processing and cataloging of this collection.

The Richardson Papers were microfilmed and are available on 76 reels. Each item has
a unique identifying number (W-xxxx, L-xxxx, R-xxxx, or M-xxxx) that corresponds to
the microfilm. This number was recorded on the file folders housing the papers and
can also be found on catalog slips present with each item.

Acquisition:

Purchase, 1961 (R43, R44) and Gift, 2005

Processed by:

Tessa Klink and Joan Sibley, 2014

Repository:

The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom
Center

The English physicist Owen Willans Richardson, who pioneered the field of thermionics,
was also known for his work on photoelectricity, spectroscopy, ultraviolet and X-ray
radiation, the electron theory, and quantum theory. He was awarded the 1928 Nobel
Prize for physics for his work in thermionics and for his discovery of Richardson's
Law.

Richardson was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England to Joshua Henry Richardson and
Charlotte Maria Willans Richardson. He was educated at Batley Grammar School and Trinity
College, Cambridge before eventually earning his D.Sc. from University College London
in 1904. During his time at Trinity College, he worked in the Cavendish Laboratory
under Joseph John Thomson. He was part of a group of scholars which included Ernest
Rutherford, Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Paul Langevin, and Harold A. Wilson, with
whom he forged professional and personal relationships.

In 1905, Richardson married Harold Wilson's sister, Lilian and in 1906, he accepted
an appointment as professor of physics at Princeton University. While at Princeton,
Richardson did research work and published papers on photoelectricity, spectroscopy,
X-rays and thermodynamics. His students at this time included Robert H. Goddard and
Arthur and Karl Compton. During this same period, Richardson's sisters married two
of his American colleagues: Elizabeth married Oswald Veblen in 1908 and in 1911 Charlotte
married Clinton Davisson. In 1913, Richardson returned to England after accepting
the Wheatstone professorship of physics at King's College, University of London. He
was also, at this time, elected as a fellow of the Royal Society.

He published his first book, The Electron Theory of Matter, in 1914 and his second, The Emission of Electricity from Hot Bodies, in 1916. His expertise made him an asset during the First World War and he was recruited
to do research in the area of telecommunications, more specifically in the industries
of wireless telegraphy and telephony.

He received the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1920 and served as president
of the Physics section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from
1921 to 1922. He relinquished teaching duties in 1924 upon his dual appointments as
Yarrow research professor of the Royal Society and director for research in physics
at King's College. He also served as president of the Physical Society from 1926 to
1928. Richardson was awarded the 1928 Nobel Prize for physics on December 12, 1929.
He was knighted in 1939.

Richardson influenced many students and peers and worked with such collaborators as
T. Tanaka, Frederick Steell Robertson, Percy Maurice Davidson, Subbarao Ramachandra
Rao and Alexander Konstantinovitch Denisoff. He played host to visiting scholars including
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Peter Debye, and Arnold Sommerfeld.
Richardson contributed to the field by advancing scientific understanding of the emission
of electrons from hot surfaces. His third and last book, Molecular Hydrogen and Its Spectrum, was published in 1934. He retired from the University of London in 1944.

Richardson and his wife Lilian had two sons, Harold Owen Wilson Richardson and John
Dixon Wilson Richardson, and one daughter, Lilian Mary Richardson (who married A.
K. Denisoff). Harold studied physics, while John entered the practice of medicine
and psychiatry. After his wife Lilian died in 1945, Richardson married physicist and
family friend Henrietta Maria Rupp in 1948. Richardson died of a cerebral thrombosis
on February 15, 1959.

In addition to the material found within the O. W. Richardson Papers, the following
biographical sources were used:

Wilson, William. "Owen Willans Richardson. 1879-1959." In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. London: Royal Society Publishing, 1960.

The papers of Nobel-prize winning physicist O. W. (Owen Willans) Richardson contain
manuscripts and research materials for Richardson's published and unpublished work;
correspondence to and from fellow scientists and educators, students, scientific organizations,
colleges and universities, government agencies, and businesses; as well as works received
from many distinguished colleagues and students. Spanning 1898 to 1958 (bulk 1920
to 1940), the papers are arranged in four series: I. Works, 1900-1949; II. Letters,
1905-1951; III. Recipient, 1903-1958; IV. Miscellaneous, 1898-1952. The papers are
primarily written in English, although some French, German, and Italian language materials
are present.

The papers include manuscript materials for Richardson's own monographs and articles
concerning his research on thermionic emission, the hydrogen molecule, soft X-rays,
quantum theory, the Rydberg constants, and other topics. The related work of many
of Richardson's students and fellow physicists, chemists, electrical engineers, and
mathematicians in the international research community is well-documented in work
undertaken either with Richardson or independently. Richardson's role as an educator
is revealed in correspondence with students, colleagues, and various organizations
and his files frequently include applications, testimonials, reports, theses, and
dissertations. The papers also attest to other aspects of Richardson's professional
career, such as his work with scientific organizations, attendance at conferences,
work supporting government and commercial research, patents received, and honors and
awards such as the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1928. A small portion of the papers
are personal in nature, chiefly correspondence from or to various family members.

The Richardson Papers were originally cataloged during a project in 1967 supported
by the Joint Committee of the American Physical Society – American Philosophical Society
on the History of Theoretical Physics in the Twentieth Century. At that time, the
papers were described on over 8,000 catalog cards which were reproduced in the 454-page
A Catalogue of the Sir Owen Richardson Manuscript Collection in the History of Science
Collection, The University of Texas, compiled by James Henry Leech. This finding aid replicates and replaces information
previously available only through the card file or the catalogue.

Series I. Works

The Works series consists chiefly of research notebooks and notes, drafts, and proofs
for Richardson's professional research and writings, 1900-1949 (32 boxes). In addition
to handwritten notes and drafts, typescript drafts, galley proofs, page proofs, and
offprints, a number of works are also represented by blueprints, calculations, charts,
diagrams, graphs, photographs, or plates. Research topics include, but are not limited
to, thermionic emission, the hydrogen molecule, soft X-rays, quantum theory, and the
Rydberg constants. Among the earliest materials are notebooks for experiments at Cambridge
University, 1902-1906. Some of the more extensively featured manuscripts in the collection
include The Electron Theory of Matter (1914), The Emission of Electricity from Hot Bodies (1916), several papers on the spectrum of H₂ (1929-1934), and Molecular Hydrogen and its Spectrum (1934).

Richardson's other writings are connected with his teaching and his work with scientific
organizations, such as testimonials and reports with professional and personal evaluations
of students and colleagues, biographical sketches and obituary notices of fellow scientists,
lecture notes, and speeches. Personal writings include two poems.

The works in this series are arranged alphabetically by title. When multiple versions
and formats represent a single title, they are arranged from earliest to latest state.
A complete index of titles is included in the Index of Works by O. W. Richardson in
this finding aid

The Recipient series consists of Richardson's incoming letters from approximately
3500 correspondents, 1903-1958 (23 boxes). Scientific correspondence dates primarily
from 1920 to 1938 and includes letters pertaining to research projects and papers
from well-known physicists such as Edward Victor Appleton, Niels Bohr, William Henry
Bragg, William Lawrence Bragg, Percy Maurice Davidson, James Hopwood Jeans, Ernest
Rutherford, Joseph John Thomson, and many others. Other frequent correspondents include
students—often sending applications, requesting testimonials, or seeking Richardson's
opinion on scientific endeavors or training—or colleagues and administrators from
King's College, University of London and many other colleges and universities.

Correspondence from British scientific societies and government organizations including
the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the National Physical Laboratory,
the Physical Society, and the Royal Society, and from major corporations with research
laboratories, such as American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Bell Telephone Laboratories,
and General Electric, is also well-represented in this series.

The series also contains about 350 letters of congratulation on the occasions of Richardson's
Nobel Prize award in 1928 and knighthood in 1939. A small portion of the correspondence
is personal in nature, primarily letters from Richardson's sisters, their husbands,
and other relatives from the Denisoff, Davisson, Richardson, Veblen, and Wilson families.

The recipient correspondence is arranged alphabetically by author name and chronologically
thereunder when multiple letters are present. All correspondent names are included
in the Index of Correspondents segment of this finding aid.

Series IV. Miscellaneous

Items in the Miscellaneous series range from 1898 to 1952 (46 boxes) and consist largely
works by Richardson's colleagues and students, as well as third-party correspondence
they wrote to persons other than Richardson.

Works by others include their research, manuscripts, proofs, or prints of scientific
papers, such as Ernest Rutherford's "Report on the Structure of an Atom" and J. M. Drinkwater's "An Objective Determination of the Visibility Curves of a Michelson Interferometer." Well-represented in this series are Ursula Andrewes, Leslie Fleetwood Bates, Devidas
Raghunath Bhawalkar, Francis Cecil Chalklin, Gerhard Heinrich Dieke, Felix Ehrenhaft,
Irving Langmuir (files concerning an unsuccessful patent lawsuit brought against him
by Harold D. Arnold), A. M. Mosharrafa, Wolfgang Pauli, Frederick Steell Robertson,
T. Tanaka and William Mayo Venable. Also present are many theses and dissertations
submitted to Richardson by Riaz Ahmad, Richard Audorf, Rabindranath Chaudhuri, Kusumeshu
Das, Alexander Konstantinovitch Denisoff, Mahmoud Ahmed El-Sherbini, Aziz Milad Ferasah,
Irena Gimpel, Otto Hahn, Hugh Harvey Hyman, Alice Leigh-Smith, Abbas Aly Nasr, Ian
Sandeman, and William Wilson. A few manuscript works also include letters written
to Richardson; these were left in place with the manuscript work under discussion.

Various papers such as general correspondence, reports, minutes, notices, and programs
from several organizations are also present, most extensively from the Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research, King's College and the University of London,
the National Physical Laboratory, the Physical Society, the Royal Commission for the
Exhibition of 1851, and the Royal Society.

This series also contains a small amount of Richardson's non-research papers, such
as addresses, inventories of apparatus, lecture notes, lists of writings, and physics
exams, as well as correspondence from others written to his wife, Maud, and other
third-party family correspondence.

The materials in this series are arranged alphabetically by creator. The finding aid
includes an Index of Works by Others to facilitate access to the names and titles
of the extensive non-Richardson works present in this series. Similarly, all correspondent
names in this series are included in the Index of Correspondents segment of this finding
aid.

Immediately following Series IV. Miscellaneous are seven boxes of original envelopes
and file folders removed from the papers during processing in the 1960s and two boxes
of items separated to oversize storage during processing.

While the collection at the Ransom Center constitutes the largest existing holding
of Richardson's papers, smaller amounts of his correspondence are found in collections
of Carl Barus (Brown University), Niels Bohr (Denmark), Ernest Rutherford (Cambridge),
and Oswald Veblen (Library of Congress).

The 2,700 books that make up the Richardson Library date primarily from the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries and cover the history of the atom; these were cataloged in
the Ransom Center's book collection. Also included in the Richardson Library are journals
and yearbooks in the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy, over
14,000 pamphlets and offprints from scientific journals, technical monographs published
by the Bell Telephone System, papers from the proceedings of the German Academy of
Science, discussions published by the Faraday Society, papers published by the Royal
Society of London, and monographs published by the Western Electric Company.

Photographs of Richardson with his family and with fellow scientists, such as E. F.
Burton, Marie Curie, S. C. Laws, and J. J. Thomson, were removed from the collection
and are housed in the Ransom Center Photography Collection's History of Science Collection.

The Sound Recordings Collection at the Center includes a phonodisc formerly owned
by Richardson of a lecture given by Lord Rutherford at Goettingen on Monday, December
14, 1931.

The Center's Vertical File Collection includes one folder of printed information for
Dorothy Miller Richardson and 2 folders for O. W. Richardson.